The Many Ways of Being Human

8.11

The Andes

On a farmyard in El Alto, a woman tips a splash of chicha onto the dirt, says Pachamama, and only then drinks. The ground has had its turn first. Whoever gives first gets to take: that rule, the chapter argues, ran an empire that taxed labor instead of goods, kept maize and chuño in rows of storehouses, and lasted barely a century before the Spanish came.